


Impromptu

by 35-leukothea (35_leukothea)



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Nezushi - Freeform, Piano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4009111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/35_leukothea/pseuds/35-leukothea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shion attempts to play piano and Nezumi gets embarrassed by his own emotions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impromptu

**Author's Note:**

> [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkqDEh-fXVI) is the song Nezumi plays.
> 
> read on tumblr [here](http://35-leukothea.tumblr.com/post/119882775587/guys-guys-guys-i-wrote-you-something-i-am-back).

Shion likes music in the same way he likes complex mathematics. He can’t understand it for the life of him, but it’s impressive and intricate and beautiful. It looks so easy when other people do it, but when he so much as lends a thought to it, he gets lost in his own brain. He does know some facts about music, though—after all, music and math are really quite similar.

Shion has no idea how much  _math_  Nezumi knows (regardless of how good his arithmetic may be), but his musical talent is, indisputably, amazing. His voice is enchanting, almost ethereal. When he sings it sounds like it’s coming from all around him, like the air itself is singing. If Shion looked away, he couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl or anyone or anything else singing at all—it was just song. Just music.

He’s not really sure how Nezumi does it.

He could ask, but that would probably take some of the magic away from it (although he doubts it would be rendered any less stunning). No, he prefers to leave it a mystery, a sort of homage to Nezumi’s intense desire to remain private and unknown while Shion tore down the rest of his barriers. He’s still interested, though, about both Nezumi’s singing and music in general. It’s late one night, while Nezumi is reading and Shion is sat on the bed doing mostly nothing, when he decides to bring it up.

“Nezumi, are you perfect pitch?” he asks.

Nezumi glances up from his book ( _The Gentle Art of Making Enemies_ ). “Am I what?”

“Perfect pitch,” he repeats, stifling a yawn. “Or absolute pitch, if we’re being technical. It means you can recognize notes and keys without a reference.”

“Oh, yeah, that,” Nezumi says with a wave of his hand. “Didn’t know it had a real name.”

“What do you call it?” Shion asks curiously.

“Elyurias’ ear. Gran said my mother had it, too.” He gives a quiet laugh. “I used to hate it.”

“What?” Shion’s bewildered. “Why? It’s an incredible ability!”

“It would make me sick, literally. I’d hear things in the ‘wrong’ key, or notes that I thought were incorrect, and I’d feel queasy. But that was only when I was little; it doesn’t have any physical affect on me anymore.” Then he jerks his chin at the old piano sitting dusty in the corner and adds, “Makes that annoying as shit to play, though. Piece of junk’s so out of tune it’s almost back  _in_  tune.”

Shion laughs at that, even though he knows Nezumi wasn’t trying to be funny, which elicits an eyeroll from the other.

“Airhead,” he mutters to no one in particular. Cravat chitters from atop a pile of books.

“Is music one of your favorite things?” Shion asks. “Along with books and theatre, I mean.”

Nezumi gives him a pained look. “Who am I, Maria Rainer?” he scoffs, in a reference Shion doesn’t understand. “Music is not a  _thing_. You can’t touch sound.”

“Well, no,” he agrees, “but that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

Shion shrugs. “I thought I posed the question rather plainly. I mean, you sing and you dance and you play piano. You  _must_  like music.”

“Well, there you go,” Nezumi replies. “You answered your own question. I do indeed like music.”

“Do you like it as much as acting?”

He makes strong eye contact. “Shion, the only thing I like as much as acting is myself.”

Shion can’t help it—he laughs at this, too. Nezumi just throws another insult his way, but it’s halfhearted and his gray eyes have softened. 

“Hey,” Shion says. “Can you play something for me?”

Nezumi raises an eyebrow. “For you?” he echoes. “That adds a whole nother level of depth to it. Did you have something in mind?”

“Not really. I don’t know much about music.”

He gets an odd glint in his eye then, and his smile has subtle devious undertones. “I’ll teach you,” he offers.

Shion knits his brow. “Like how you ‘taught’ me to dance?”

“Hey, what’s with that tone?”

“You pretty much just dragged me along until I figured it out on my own.”

“You learn better that way, I’ve discovered. Come here.”

He grabs Shion by the wrist and pulls him to the piano, and they sit next to each other on the bench. It’s wooden and uncomfortable, and Shion’s barely sat down when he starts to feel his lower back getting tired.

“Don’t slouch,” Nezumi snaps instantly. “You wouldn’t slouch on a horse.”

Shion’s weary brain doesn’t understand this comparison at all. “What?” he asks absently, then yawns again.

“If you have bad posture on a horse, you’ll fall off,” Nezumi explains. “You probably won’t fall off the piano bench, but you won’t be able to play properly.” He presses a white key in the center of the piano with his index finger and winces slightly—it sounds muted and musty. “This is middle C. Or, at least, it would be, if it were in tune.”

Shion nods; he knows musical notes are named with letters. He points to the white keys on either side of middle C. “So those are B and D.”

“Congratulations, you know the alphabet. You can now graduate kindergarten.”

Shion gives him a little shove, and Nezumi laughs. “And the black keys are sharps and flats,” he continues.

“Right,” says Nezumi. “Now put your one on middle C.”

“My one?”

“Your thumb."

“So two is the index finger.”

“Congratulations, you can also count. Don’t lie your hand flat like that.”

Shion looks down at his hand, but sees nothing wrong with it. “Huh?”

Nezumi reaches around him with one arm and across him with the other to position his hand on the keys, putting his index and middle fingers on the next keys. “Pretend there’s an egg in your palm,” he instructs. “You don’t want to smash it, but you don’t want to let it fall to the ground either.”

“This feels really weird,” Shion remarks with a frown.

“That’s because you don’t have piano hands, your Highness,” is the unhelpful response. “Put your left one on middle C too, with your two and three on B and A. Now you can play C-B-A with that hand and C-D-E with the other.” He sings a short tune, clearly meant for teaching small children.

_C-D-E has a tree, full of apples as can be.  
C-B-A likes to play in the meadow on the hay._

Shion forces himself not to smile, knowing that Nezumi’s dignity is probably already affronted from having to sing that in the first place, and attempts to replicate the short theme. He does a pretty poor job of it, considering he’s only got five keys to choose from and the notes are in the song’s lyrics, but for a first attempt it could probably be worse. Nezumi just laughs at him and tells him to try again until he gets it, which is the third time around.

“Look at that,” he marvels. “His Highness has learned a song for five-year-olds. You truly can graduate kindergarten now.”

Shion grins and leans on Nezumi’s shoulder—his back aches from the hard bench and stiff posture, and he hasn’t gotten any less tired. “I didn’t go to kindergarten,” he says vaguely. “Will you play something now?”

Nezumi bows his head slightly. “Of course,” he replies, with only a hint of irony in his voice, and lays his hands lightly on the keys. “Do you have an opinion on Schubert?”

“Oh, don’t patronize me.”

He snickers to himself, earning him an unenthusiastic elbow in the side, and then, when they have both quieted down, begins to play.

Shion doubts that the old piano, with its strings and internal workings drowned in dust, could ever be very loud, but the song that Nezumi has chosen itself is soft, quiet regardless of its instrument. It rises in volume very little, and its melody is elegant, fluent like water or wind. Shion has never heard it before, but he likes it, no matter how out of tune it may be. It’s immersive. Calming. Nezumi is warm next to him, and he is so very, very tired...

 

* * *

 

Nezumi knows Shion is asleep before he finishes the Schubert piece. His breathing has slowed; he can feel it against his shoulder. The impromptu ends on a mere whisper of a G-flat chord, at  _pianississimo_ , and he holds it for eight counts, letting the sound fade away before he gently lifts the pressure from the keys and the pedal. He looks to Shion at his side: the boy’s hands lie curled in his lap, and his snowy hair has fallen into his face. Nezumi wants to touch that hair. He restrains himself.

He pushes the bench back cautiously, and begins to pull Shion into his arms to carry him princess-style to bed. He’s embarrassing himself, but it has to be done. Can’t just let the poor kid sleep on a wooden plank. He lays Shion down on the mattress and pulls the quilt over him, then makes as if to get up and walk away, but he stops halfway through when he realizes he’s staring. He’s still looking at Shion’s hair. Unable to find any good reason not to, he reaches out and runs his fingers through it. It feels silvery—no, it feels like normal hair.

And he just thinks,  _Ah, what the hell_ , before leaning down and pressing a kiss to Shion’s forehead that lingers a few moments more than necessary. Then he straightens, takes his seat back on the couch, and opens his book to the page he left off on. Nobody has to know.


End file.
